The moral or educational tale of the early nineteenth century

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At a distance of over a century it is difficult to pass a
fair considered judgment on the moral and educational tales
of the early nineteenth century. To judge them from a literary standpoint; weigh up this and that contribution to the
art of novel writing and attempt to balance matter with style,
is to be unfair to the writers. Their work was frankly minor,
and by adults was not regarded as other than for young people.
It was not considered important literature. The modern age
would find the tales not easy to read, both from a literary
and subject interest. Their importance is historical. They
belong to the age of respectability and however much the
present age may dismiss them as adding nothing to the technique of the novel or as contributing little to the enjoyment of an idle moment, they must, even through sheer weight
of numbers, have influenced the manners and conduct of many.
With this in mind it is possible to avoid the danger of overemphasising the weakness and of neglecting the importance of
the tales. The writers cannot be dismissed simply as products
of a period; they were a part of the history of the Middle
Class and an indication of the sources from which that class
derived its strength and. weakness.

It is impossible to think in superlatives when dealing with
the moral and educational tales in the period I790 -I840.
That they appealed to the middle class readers of the day is
proved by the number of editions many of the tales reached,
but a vogue and numbers do not constitute an enduring literature, though numbers do indicate a demand. It is the work
that can transcend the popular demand that lives, although it
may not - and usually does not - found a school or fashion.
Judged as works of fiction, to them could be applied Scott's
criticism of the characters of Charlotte Smith (I749- I806.)
In his 'Lives of the Novelists' he wrote, 'The characters of
Mrs. Smith are conceived with truth and force, though we do
not recollect any one bears the stamp of actual novelty'.
In all justice to the fair authors, however, 'novelty' as
novelty was about the last thing they sought. Their characters bear too much the stamp of a purpose and as such have no
independent life outside the orbit of their creators' plan,
whether it is the duties of a godmother or the benefit of
being able to say 'no'. The patterned action which is
characteristic of the tales does not admit of spontaneity,
nor does it permit any deviation from the strict design.

This neither makes for naturalness nor gives the reader
the sense of pleasure which comes from the unexpected.

A popular literature is generally mediocre in quality, not
only because there must be a constant supply of books to meet
the demand, but because the whim or phase of the moment admits
of little originality or freedom of thought on the part of the
writer; he must satisfy the whim. The most successful storytellers, in a period where one type of tale is popular and one
message demanded,are those who can say something different on
a well -worn theme or deliver an expected message in some unusual guise. That was the problem which faced the writers of
moral tales between I800 and 1840. There was little difficulty in entering the fiction market. The reading public was
eager to read, to dip into the moral and religious fare offered them, especially as by the beginning of the nineteenth
century virtue was 'advancing on a broad invincible front',
and, as has elsewhere been indicated, a change had been
taking place in manners and morals. Many of the writers did
not survive first editions - as many do not in the present
century - because they interpreted the mood of the moment too
exactly and without freshness; other survived into the late
years of the nineteenth century, not by virtue of their
lesson, but because of a superior literary merit or some unusual setting as the Indian background of Mrs. Sherwood's
tales.

By the early 'forties, the moral and educational tale
which had been taken over by the religious group of writers
with a consequent emphasis on the evil within rather than
that without, and a resultant absence of cheer, had been devitalized by its absorption into tract literature, with,
however, the beneficial effect of widening the circle of
readers. The genus proper had blossomed into its finest
flower in the work of Charlotte Mary Yonge (I823 -9I) whose
"Heir of Redcliffe" (1853) aroused enthusiasm not only with
Anglican Churchmen, the Tractarians, the Pre -Raphaelite
brotherhood of William Morris, Burne Jones, and D.G. Rossetti,
but officers in the army. In Charlotte Yonge, the puppets
come to life; morality is there, but it is woven 'into the
texture of the plot, and goodness is disinterested. Her
virtuous characters carry into manhood and womanhood the in-
fluences of an edication based on religious and refined principles. The popularity of Charlotte Yonge was in full vigour
by the 'sixties of the century, her works being read not only
by the High Church circle but by the general reading public.

In the 'fifties and 'sixties, the characters of the moral
tales were coming out into the open world to do battle against
vice, injustice and wrong, whether in the robustious society
at riugby School, or in the forecastle of an Elizabethan
galleon, and the qualities of grit, determination and devotion
to duty were winning a John Halifax not only a position of
affluence, but a right to a place far in advance of the promise
of his birth. As products of wise guidance, they were proving
'their worth beyond the domestic hearth. Yet there were forces
arrayed against the portrayal of the very good. As far back
as I820, when there seems to be a lull in the prolific outpouring of moral tales, Mary Russel Mitford had praised an
'old novel' by Mrs. Bennet, called 'The Beggar Girl' because
she saw in it not only the 'prodigious quantity of invention',
but 'a freshness and truth' which she said carne from 'the total
absence of moral maxims of the do -me-good air , which one expects to find in Miss Edgeworth'. In I868 the non-conformist
organ the 'British Quaterly' defended Tom Brown and Alice
against Eric and 'goody -goody books' in general. Twenty
years before, Edward Lear (I8I2 -1888) had written the 'Book
of Nonsense', and in I865, 'Alice in Wonderland' had charmed
young and old. 'Eric or Little by Little' (Farrar) appeared
in I858; the same year saw Thackeray's 'The Rose and the Ring'
which, while the conventions of the good rewarded and the bad
punished, were followed, treats the moral light heartedly.
Sentimentalism, apparent in Charles Dickens (I8I2 -1870), 'Eric,
or Little by Little', and Florence Montgomery's 'Misunderstood'
(1869) had a rival in the sensationalism of 'The Woman in
White' (1860), 'The Moonstone' (I868), Le Fanu's 'The House by
the Churchyard' (I863), and 'Uncle Silas' (1864), Miss Braddon's
'Lady Audley's Secret' (2862) and Mrs. Henry Wood's 'East Lynne'
(186I), while in I863 with the publication of Ouida's 'Held in
Bondage', 'a gush of excitement, half delighted and half fearful shook the reading public'. Before such, the moral tale
paled into insignificance and faded into cheap tracts of the
type such as 'Widow Clarke's House', 'The Wife's Secret', 'My
Wife did it', 'Honesty the best Policy', 'Mïlly's Trials and Triumphs', 'Sandy's Faith', 'Ivirs. 'Warley's Lodger', 'Fine - Weather Dick' and 'Comfort Cottage'.

By the time of Queen Victoria's accession (I867), the
middle classes had been thoroughly indoctrinated with the
ethical and moral code as illustrated in narrative form in the
moral tales of the early nineteenth century. A standard of
conduct had been laid down, which embraced Sabbath observance,
responsibility and philanthropy, moral behaviour and discipline, in the home. There was nothing nebulous or idealistic
about life as depicted in the tales, nothing of the unpractical quality that Hazlitt (I778 -I830) saw in the ideals of
Godwin. The manners of Parliament in the 'thirties might be,
(as G.M. Young suggested, the worst on record, but there is
little doubt that the tales contributed in building up a solid
code of duty and self -discipline which stood the nation in
good stead in the sudden acquisition of wealth, power, and
knowledge which marked the Victorian era. The process had
been going on since 1780. In the late eighteenth century,
Thomas Day, Mrs. Barbauld, and Maria Edgeworth had prepared
the minds of young people for the sequisition and digesting of
knowledge; the writers of the early nineteenth century had
acted as a curb on the extravagances and licences which are
attendant on a revolutionary age, and had helped to keep alive
the ideal of education for all - though not the modern one of equality of opportunity. The foundation having been well and
truly made, the moral tale, because its aims and ideals had
already been achieved, as far as the upper and middle classes
were concerned, gave place to the economic, social and political problems which were courageously faced in 'Sybil' (1845),
'Mary Barton' (I848), 'Yeast' (I848), 'Alton Locke' (I850),
and to a lesser degree 'John Halifax, Gentleman' (I856).

The educational and moral tale answered the need of the
moment. When that need was satisfied,its work was done. It
had sowed the seed which was to Mature into a Florence Nightingale, a David Livingstone, a William Ewart Gladstone, a Macaulay, a Browning, a Ruskin and later a Meredith. It had
strengthened the moral backbone of the country and prepared
Britain for the role she had assumed in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, that of moral leadership of the
world.